Hernandez Prosecutors Want Testimony About Gun Allowed

In this June 24, 2014 photo, former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, center, is escorted by court officers as he enters Suffolk Superior Court before a hearing in Boston.

In this June 24, 2014 photo, former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, center, is escorted by court officers as he enters Suffolk Superior Court before a hearing in Boston. (Steven Senne / Associated Press)

Prosecutors in the Aaron Hernandez murder case have asked the judge to allow testimony from a Bristol Central High School teammate of the former NFL star that they say will show Hernandez owned a gun matching the one used to kill Odin Lloyd in June 2013.

Hernandez, 25, is scheduled to stand trial for murder Jan. 9 in Bristol County, Mass. In a motion filed Tuesday, the prosecution asked the court to approve as a witness Robert Paradis, a Bristol native and "longtime friend" of the former New England Patriot.

In spring 2013, Hernandez was living in California for off-season training and shoulder rehabilitation. Prosecutors say that six weeks before the shooting, he paid for Paradis to fly first-class to Los Angeles to visit him for several days, and during that time told his friend he had a ".45."

Authorities never recovered the murder weapon used to kill Lloyd, believed to be a .45-caliber Glock pistol. Bristol County Assistant District Attorney William McCauley wrote in the court filing that Hernandez's "brag that he had a .45 is clearly evidence from which the jury could find, close in time to the murder, that Hernandez possessed a weapon matching the identical large caliber handgun used in the murder of Odin Lloyd."

After Hernandez left Los Angeles and returned to Boston, he called Paradis and asked him to check for a black T-shirt in the top drawer of his bedroom, McCauley wrote. Paradis "checked the drawer as requested and found a large handgun wrapped in the black t-shirt."

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez faces his first murder trial this month in a case that destroyed his multimillion dollar football career and revealed what authorities say is a history of violence that went largely unnoticed during his years as an NFL star.

Hernandez, 25, of...

Lloyd was friends with Hernandez, and had been dating the sister of the former Patriot tight end's fiancée. He was killed, prosecutors say, because of a dispute the men had at a Boston nightclub two nights before the shooting.

Along with their bid to add another government witness to a list that exceeds 300, prosecutors also are seeking to block testimony from a defense witness, Dr. David Greenblatt, a medical expert on PCP and marijuana. The two other men charged with murder in Lloyd's death, Bristol natives Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, both have criminal records that include the use or possession of PCP, a street drug known to cause violent behavior.

Lloyd, who was friends with the former Patriot tight end, was shot in June 2013....

"While it is true that Wallace and Ortiz were observed smoking PCP on the Saturday night preceding the murder … there is no evidence that either consumed PCP after that time and there is no witness who described any behavior that was consistent with the effects of PCP at any time near the time of the murder," McCauley wrote in a separate motion filed Tuesday. "In the absence of a nexus between PCP and the actual crime … defendant's expert witness should not be permitted to testify."

In preparation for trial, prosecutors also have asked for permission to bus jurors from the courthouse in Fall River, Mass., to locations relevant to the case. The list of sites indicates that prosecutors plan on retracing Hernandez's steps the night of the crime – when he and his two accomplices left his home in North Attleborough, drove to Boston to pick up Lloyd, and drove back to North Attleborough, where surveillance footage shows their car entering the industrial park where Lloyd's bullet-riddled body was found the next day.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Jan. 9 and expected to last until the end of the month. Hernandez has been held without bail since his arrest in June 2013. He also faces two more counts of murder in a 2012 double homicide in Boston, which is not expected to go to trial until later this year.